The Nightmare Stacks (Laundry Files, #7)

by Charles Stross

Hey Brains, show him what you’ve been logging: it’s pretty cool. I love the smell of muons and gamma radiation in the morning . . .”

It turns out that the first law of vampire club is vampires don’t exist, and if a vampire does allow their existence to come to light the other PHANGs will do their best to kill them, lest the government notices and institutes mandatory naked noonday identity parades.

“What exactly do you need?” “All the street camera time in the world. A technical team. And a bunch of feet on the ground who don’t have enough of a clue what they’re up against to run away.

“Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence or overwork?” Alex asks, rising. “Something like that. But there’s a point at which sufficient incompetence is malice.”

“Bang-sticks.” Harry snorts. “No, you don’t want regular guns for dealing with those fuckers. What you want is back here in the stacks, where we keep the really useful nightmares . . .”

“If you see a gate with nothing beyond it, park up and I’ll open it and let you through. If you see a gate with hostiles beyond it, treat as trouble. If you see a gate and there are live hostiles behind us, remember you’re driving a tank.”

“We’re still alive so they’re all dead back there. Clearly, or we’d be dead, too, sitting around with our thumbs up our ass like this.”